High School Football: Imperfect Cavaliers remain perfect

September 26, 2009

CLEAR LAKE - While the performance was far from perfection, the Aberdeen Roncalli Cavaliers remained perfect on the football season Friday night. Roncalli overcame five turnovers and more than 100 yards in penalties to blank Deuel 27-0 in Northeast Conference action. As a result, the Cavaliers pushed their NEC-leading record to 5-0. “It was kind of a frustrating game,” said Roncalli coach Terry Dosch. “We just made a lot of mistakes that we should not be making at this point in the season. We want to play better and we're confident that we can and we're confident that we will.” It was not that Roncalli was ever threatened. The Cavaliers scored 17 points in the first 8 minutes of the game. Roncalli received a 25-yard field goal from Christian Cox on its first possession, then added a 21-yard touchdown run by Jon Horner on its second drive. Zach Rohlfs then hauled in a 15-yard pass from Cox for another TD. However, the second quarter was a repeat of last week's turnover fest. The Cavaliers once again turned the ball over four times in a quarter and this time had a host of penalties to go along with it. Roncalli ended up with more than 115 yards in penalties on the night. “I've never been part of anything like that,” Dosch said. “We must be teaching something wrong, because we really got zinged on a couple of things.” At halftime, it was Dosch who was doing the zinging. He informed his players that they were going to run the ball between the tackles no matter what. “I said, 'If we've got a fourth and nine from our one, we're going for it. We've got to prove a point,' ” Dosch said he told his squad. The Cavaliers responded by marching the ball straight down the field, rushing the ball 11 straight times culminating in a three-yard TD by Andrew Holmstrom. Roncalli later capped the scoring the same way it started it with another Cox field goal, this time of 33 yards. While Dosch was pleased with the win, he knows that his team can and must play better in the future. “It's a little annoying not to play up to your potential,” Dosch said. “The important thing is to understand what your potential is.” The Cavaliers head out of conference next week to face Clark-Willow Lake. Roncalli has not played Clark since 2004, but has had some memorable battles in the past. “We just had some real wars with them,” Dosch recalled. “They've got a really good athlete in the (Derek) Brown kid. We're going to have to do a good job of containing him.” Aberdeen Roncalli (5-0) 17 0 10 0-27 Deuel (0-4) 0 0 0 0- 0 First Quarter AR - Christian Cox 25 field goal, 8:50. AR - Jon Horner 21 run (Cox kick), 5:48. AR - Zach Rohlfs 15 pass from Cox (Cox kick), 3:47. Third Quarter AR - Andrew Holmstrom 3 run (Cox kick), 7:16. AR - Cox 33 field goal, 2:00. RHS DHS Firstdowns 14 4 Rushes-yards 47-240 29-58 Passing 109 39 Comp-Att-Int 7-13-2 1-11-2 Punts-Avg. 1-31.0 7-27.4 Fumbles-Lost 6-3 3-2 Penalties-Yards 15-117 4-45 INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS RUSHING-Aberdeen Roncalli, Christian Cox 8-66, Brendon Hoellein 10-56, Andrew Holmstrom 7-52; Deuel, Tyson Ronne 8-32. PASSING-Aberdeen Roncalli, Cox 7-13-2 for 109; Deuel, Spencer Schmahl 1-11-2 for 39. RECEIVING-Aberdeen Roncalli, Zach Rohlfs 5-94; Deuel, Wes Greber 1-39.